Check Out a Small, Yet Important Scene From Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha”

It seems that characters in Noah Baumbach films are always in a constant state of angst, and this clip from his new film Frances Ha (opening next Friday, May 17th in limited release) is no different.

In the scene, entitled “Brunch Friends.” Frances (played by current Baumbach muse, Greta Gerwig) admonishes her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) about marrying her boyfriend “Patch.” According to Gerwig, the twenty-eight second scene took forty-two takes total to get right and the film itself averaged around thirty-five takes per scene. It’s kind of crazy considering this was Baumbach’s small “secret” film, shot on the fly and without any formal announcements.

On average, Baumbach shot thirty-five takes per scene, but in this case he used take twenty-nine in the final film. For an interesting breakdown about each take and the personal process from Gerwig herself, have a look at this essay she wrote for the New York Times here.

Otherwise be sure to seek out the film when it opens next week (all us lucky New Yorkers can see it at the IFC Center) or you can wait until it might very well come to the Criterion Collection depending on how you make sense of this wacky drawing.